Agitation from the Armenian community for political reform and autonomy, brewing since the 1870s, was further intensified by large-scale massacres that occurred across the empire in 1894–1897 and in Cilicia in 1909; additionally, the more seemingly benign expressions of oppression and discrimination faced by Armenians, which had increased throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, also contributed to growing discontent. Though they had already suffered grave injustices, the previous misfortunes of the Ottoman Armenians paled in comparison to the genocide of 1915–1916. As Bloxham notes, the massacres of the 1890s and genocide of 1915 differ in significant ways—notably in their motivations as well as in participation by centralized versus localized actors—but share a common time frame at the twilight of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the massacres of 1894–1897 themselves charted the course of what was to come, conditioning the mentality of both perpetrators and victims.

This episode was written by Ümit Kurt.

Ümit Kurt is a historian of the Modern Middle East with a particular focus on the transformations of the imperial structures and their role in constituting the republican regime. Kurt is Polonsky Fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. He is the author of several books in Turkish and English, including “The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide.” His recent book is, The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province, published by Harvard University Press, May 2021. He is currently teaching in the Dept. of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Kurt is the winner of the Discovery Early Career Research Award of 2021, given by Australian Research Council.

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